Posted: Monday, 22 June 2009 11:40AM
We Need A Cleansing Not A Whitewash
Steve Corbett Reporting
Monday, June 22, 2009
So now we got ourselves a task force, courtesy of Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty.
Doherty finally realized that the death of Brenda Williams at the hands of city police needs to be evaluated so we can decrease the odds of such a tragedy from happening again.
But will the task force have the power to enact policy? Or will Doherty simply use the assembled “experts” to take the heat off his administration because no formal public policy exists to safeguard the rights of the mentally ill?
We’ll have to wait six months to find out.
So will Doherty.
The mayor said on “Corbett” Friday that he wants to learn so he will not take an active role in the task force that will produce a report on its findings by the end of the year. His public safety director will head up the task force that is comprised mostly of bureaucrats who work in the mental health system - the very same system that could not prevent cops from shooting and killing Williams despite her lengthy history of mental illness.
Doherty likely means well.
But he’s still very distant from the needs of too many members of the community that fall along class, race and gender lines. Doherty is still too much a part of the beautiful people crowd that prefers hip bars and dancing with the stars to community mental health centers and maybe a much-needed methadone clinic in a thriving downtown.
Severely mentally ill Scrantonians simply clash with the décor.
You probably won’t see a character based on Brenda Williams in an episode of “The Office.” And if you do, it will be for a few belly laughs at the crazy lady’s expense before we head out for a few cocktails and some jazz.
Scranton’s business and political system isn’t made for compassion.
The same goes for Lackawanna County.
County Commissioner Corey O’Brien also called “Corbett” on Friday.
After failing to respond to requests for interviews, the aspiring congressman called to offer a self-serving and defensive analysis of Williams’ death.
Without so much as offering my-heart-goes-out-to-the-Williams-family-platitudes, O’Brien babbled on and on in bureaucratese and double-talk that made him sound less than informed about the five bullets that killed Williams.
He did congratulate Doherty on the task force, though.
After he hung up, O’Brien called my office number to lecture me for cutting him off. He also wanted to stress that Lackawanna County District Attorney Andy Jarbola told him that the county did not fail Williams. The Veterans’ Administration failed Williams, O’Brien said Jarbola told him.
As smart as O’Brien wants us to think he is, he is wrong.
Jarbola told the world that the mental health system failed Williams. That includes the county services as well as federal care for veterans.
Press accounts report that police and Williams made contact with the Scranton Counseling Center which holds the county contract to deal with the mentally ill. And since O’Brien is the lead commissioner in a less than dynamic duo of Democrats who hold the majority and make the rules, he really needs to take some responsibility for what happened.
But that might interfere with his new image as aspiring congressman. That might take some of the boyish charm he tries to exude. That might bring him onto the heart of a political reality that he more than anybody should recognize.
A shameful aspect of that political reality is the fact that no African-American sits on the mayor’s new task force. Until I brought it to his attention on the air, Doherty apparently didn’t even think about the significance of race in a death where four white male cops crowded a sick black woman’s apartment and opened fire.
And if the significance of diversity dawned on O’Brien he too didn’t mention it either on the air or off.
The aftermath of the shooting and the legacy of Williams require more than another all-white meeting. Critics worry that the group will accomplish nothing that will upset the mayor or the status quo. In real hip cities, people of all colors call that a whitewash.
A distinguished elder pastor best characterized Scranton’s urban reality during Williams’ funeral service.
“If it doesn’t come out in the wash, it will come out in the rinse,” he said.
The pastor is right on the mark.
This community needs a real good cleansing.
|
Corbett
E-Mail
Print
